Sails and Stars

New Member of the Brood

2010-11-19T18:54:00.000-05:00

The Admiral was due next Friday. Nevertheless, we've had two false alarms over the last couple weeks. Both prompted me to leave work early or come in late. On Fridays. I was beginning to worry that folks at work would think me a slacker who came up with convenient baby excuses to miss work on Friday. ;) Well, not really. But it was becoming somewhat comic.

Last night that all ended. Her water broke at about 9:30. By 10:30 she was contracting every 5 minutes or so, so we left the in-laws with the munchkins (they came into town on Wednesday) and got to the hospital.

We arrived at about 11:30. The nurses weren't expecting us to arrive until morning, so we had to wait a few minutes while they finished cleaning up the room. I don't think they believed us when we told them how short her previous labors had been (9 hrs and 3 hrs). Sure enough, by 1:30 or so her contractions were getting really intense and she wanted that epideral. The nurses were shocked, got the midwife, and found her at just under 10 cm. It was too late for the epideral. Right before 2, they called her at 10 cm. She was really not having fun and wasn't sure if she could tough it out. Of course, there was really no choice in the matter so on she went. And at 2:10 am, our new addition arrived.

Welcome aboard, Liev Nikolai! He came in at 6 lbs, 11 oz and 18.5 inches. He's a little guy but we're happy to have him. :)

Mom was very impressed with herself for going full natural this time. I was impressed too. Great job!

Sibylla liked her new little brother immediately.

Vasili wasn't as impressed. No doubt that will change.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Go Skins!

2010-09-12T16:49:00.001-04:00

It's that time of year again.....

The Admiral gave me this forest face for my birthday. Fun, eh?

Aw yeah.....it's time for some FOOTBALL! NFL opening weekend, to be precise. Gotta love it. And there's no better way to start than for my boys to play the Dallas Cowboys. At home. Tonight. This year should be good. I'm not too pleased that we picked up McNabb from the Eagles, but we've actually put together an Offensive Line over the off-season. Say what you want about Jason Campbell, but if he'd had an Offensive Line (not to mention a stable offensive scheme) to play behind over the last few years, he would have been a LOT better than he was. The 'Skins managed to take a guy with a LOT of potential and make him mediocre with their crappy personnel decisions and hyper-active micromanagement of the coaching staff. Hopefully the new regime under Shanahan, with Bruce Allen in the front office, will be different. We'll see!

In the meantime, Go Skins! Beat Dallas!

So the last couple weeks have been busy, and fun. Going in reverse chronological order.....

Yesterday, our first event was apple picking. The Admiral's Mommy Club decided to meet at the Bowman Farm, a short way south of our house. Naturally, the kids and I went along. It took a couple minutes for the kids to get the message on what they were supposed to do, but once they figured it out, they were totally into it! We only stayed for 45 minutes or so, but we left with just over 13 pounds of apples! That should last us for....oh about.....a week.

Sibylla picking up a storm!

Vasili got in on the act also. Well done, lad!

After apple picking, we drove down to Albany, to the Apple Store. The Admiral's Macbook Pro is acting up: the LCD screen is starting to die. I guess we shouldn't complain about it, considering the thing is 3 1/2 ears old and has been dropped, spilled on, and danced on (Sibylla!) multiple times, but still functions. We were dreading replacing her computer, though. The plan was to replace mine first, since it's going on 6 years old now and WICKED slow. It works though, so with her screen dying we began to contemplate options for buying a new laptop for her. Fortunately, it looks like it'll only cost $400 or so to fix her screen. That's a lot, but not nearly as much as a new laptop altogether. So next month, we'll git 'r done.

Next on the agenda was a pig roast. My cousin, Christine, whom I hadn't seen for 15 years before a few weeks ago, lives about a 1/2 hour south of Albany. I had no idea, until my Aunt Nadya visited her then realized she was wicked close to us, so brought her up to say hi to us last month. Christine invited us to this pig roast party they were throwing yesterday, and we were glad to go. We drove straight from the Apple Store to her place, and stayed for a few hours. Alas, we didn't get to partake in the pig itself because the kids pooped out before they finished roasting it. But we had a great time with her, her husband, and their friends. It was good to hang with them for a bit.

The Admiral and Christine

Rewind a week and a half. Wednesday, 1 September, saw us in Boston at Boston Children's Hospital, for a Vasili's follow-up with his Cardiologist. You may recall that Vasili has an Atrial Septal Defect. We knew he was going to need surgery, but the Doc wanted to check on him this fall, before we schedule it. Well, he's looking great. He's in the 50th percentile in height and weight, has lots of energy, and is not asthmatic or pneumonic at all. The Doc (who looks and sounds JUST like Donald Sutherland) was very pleased with how he's doing, but pointed out that he is starting to show some signs of enlargement in the right side of his heart. There was no rush to get the surgery done, but we wanted to do it with plenty of time for him to recover before we have to move again, and with plenty of time after kid #3 comes to let him grow a little so we'll feel better leaving him with the grandparents for a week or so while Vasili gets cut. So we decided to schedule the surgery for next May. So it was a productive visit. The Admiral teared up a bit, naturally. It's a scary thing to think about your cracking open your kid's chest. But this procedure is about as routine as any open-heart surgery gets. They go in and sew some kevlar into the whole between his atria. Within 6 months, the tissue grows over the kevlar and you'll never know the whole existed to begin with. It's got something like a 97% success/survival rate, and Boston Children's Hospital is the #1 Pediatric Cardiology hospital in the country. So there's little to worry about.....but still, it's not the most fun thing to contemplate.

While waiting for the Doctor, Sibylla treated Vasili to a spin, literally, in the Doctor's chair.

As soon as Vasili's appointment was finished, we piled in the car and headed south to Dewey Beach Delaware, where my Mom has a beach house. We'd committed to spending Labor Day weekend there a few months ago, and despite the Admiral's parents' complete panic about Hurricane Earl, we were determined to follow through (especially after we saw the cone that showed Earl going well off the Delaware coast, with at best a Tropical Storm happening where we were going to be). So we felt great about the trip. We had to endure calls every other half-hour from her parents though, corresponding, no doubt, to each update on Earl in their local news in Maine. From my perspective it wasn't all that much of a change, since they tend to call the Admiral six times a day anyway. But she got really annoyed with the calls too this time. After all, she's 35 years old. Can't she figure out for herself what risks are prudent to take and which aren't? I tend to think so, and so does she.

So naturally, we were both feeling more than a bit superior when Earl did precisely jack squat to the Delaware coast. :)

In the week leading up to the trip, I did some car searches in the Delaware area for used mini vans. We've been contemplating a mini van for a while, especially since the Admiral became pregnant with #3. We realized the the Tribecca, though an awesome vehicle, wouldn't cut it for three kids in car seats. Back in May, we came this close to buying a Toyota Sienna, but withdrew from the deal when the dealer began screwing around with us (not accepting a loan draft from Navy Federal Credit Union, for instance). Walking away from that deal, we decided to finish paying off the Tribecca and set aside money each month to pay cash for a mini van around the end of the year. But Delaware has no sales tax. So I figured I'd look and see if anything was available, and found a fully-loaded 2007 Kia Sedona for just $16k. Like many, I suppose, I had a leery view of Kia's, but after doing some research I was quite impressed with the model. I sent the listing to the Admiral, who also was interested. The Sedona was in a dealer just 4 miles from my Mom's place, so on Thursday, we went to see it, as well as 3 other mini vans of similar age they had listed. Interestingly enough, the only one of the four that wasn't sold was the Kia. We test-drove it and decided we liked it a lot, so we closed the deal that afternoon. It has everything we wanted: power doors and tailgate, DVD player, folding rear seats, the works. We had to get a (small) loan to cover that which the trade-in and our saved down payment wouldn't, but we'll have it paid off by Christmas or so, if all goes as planned. So that worked out well!

Here's a shot of our new mini-van. All kinds of room compared to the Tribecca! That's my sister in the back with the kiddies.

The rest of the weekend was fun. My grandmother, who hadn't seen Vasili in a long time, flew in from Indiana, and my Sister came up from Florida. So we had a little family reunion of sorts. We spent Friday at the house, because Earl brought in clouds and (very little) rain. But by Saturday it was all sun, so we hit the beach. After getting enough sun for my pale hide, we got Nic-o-boli's for lunch at Nicola's Pizza in Rehobeth Beach. Nicola's is sort of a family tradition when we're there, and it's famous in the area, so we couldn't miss it. We all left Sunday morning, the better to avoid Labor Day traffic, and give ourselves Labor Day to recover at home before work on Tuesday.

We had to get lunch at Nicola's Pizza in Rehobeth. Silly Vasili slept through most of it, though.

Retreat back another week, and you'll find the Admiral and I at the Creed Concert at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC), in Saratoga Springs, about 5 miles north of our little town of Ballston Spa. Everyone knows that Creed rocks, but we were both very impressed with Skillet, their opening band, also. The SPAC is a great venue, too, though the beer prices are a bit high.

The Pavilion at the SPAC

That's a big beer (24 oz), but it cost $13! Oy....

So that's about it for the last couple weeks. It's been fun!

Tessie

2010-08-23T21:57:00.001-04:00

Tessie.....
'Nuff Said McGreevey shouted!
We're not here to mess around!
Boston, you know we love you madly hear the crowd roar to your sound!
Don't blame us if we ever doubt ya, you know we couldn't live without ya.
Tessie, you are the only only only......

Yeah, that's right. I hit Fenway for the Sox game yesterday. My pal Brett from work is leaving soon for Georgia. He's a New Hampshire native, so he's a born and bred Sox fan, and he wanted to see them one more time before he goes. So I got permission from the Admiral then went on Stubhub and found some tickets. Brett came by Yesterday at 0800, just in time for waffles. After that, we were off.

It's about 3.5 hrs to Boston from Saratoga. We didn't want to screw around with parking, though, so we stopped in Newton and took to T in. We were able to park at metered parking (no meter on Sunday) right next to the station, so that worked out well.

We got to Yawkey way at about 1215. Game start was 1334, so we had some time to kill. That meant only one thing: Boston Beer Works.

I love their beer. Good stuff. The place was packed, of course. We hung out for a while, but other business intruded. You see, Brett's family already moved down to Georgia, with all of his stuff save a few things. Those few things did not include any Red Sox attire. Feeling naked without a good Sox hat, he insisted on hitting the team store for one.

It didn't take long. Good thing too, because it was approaching game time. But as everyone in the New England area can tell you, it was raining yesterday. We were hopeful that it'd pass though, and the forecast backed our hopes up. So we went in to our seats: Right Field Box, Section 95, Row QQ. Not bad.

One bit of amusement: the infield tarp was brought to us by LL Bean.

I don't want to think how much they paid for that honor.

Game time came and went, but the rain continued. I called up the weather map on weather.com, though, and saw rain-free skies over Providence. The system was pushing northeast, so that boded well. Sure enough, the grounds crew came out and removed the tarp at 1430, and the public address guy announced the new start time: 1515. Ok, we're in business!

The first couple innings were uneventful. In the top of the third, that changed. Yep, it started raining again. Hard. The umpire called it right after Buccholz got his 5th strikeout of the night, and the grounds crew covered the infield again. No lie, as soon as they finished, it stopped raining. Of course the game couldn't restart immediately; the management gave sufficient time to be sure the rainfall had fully passed. In the meantime they played the other games of the day on the jumbotron. So that was ok. Eventually, though, they decided we were good to go again, and at 1705 the game recommenced.

Without further interruption, we enjoyed the rest of the game. The Sox came through: 5-0! Buccholz got win number 16, and brought his ERA below 2.3, which I believe puts him to #1 in the majors in that category. Sweet!

Of course, that just started the fun. We left Fenway at 1930 and got back to the car about 45 minutes later. Back on the Mass Turbpike, we both decided we needed food and caffeine to even hope completing the drive alive. So we stopped at the first service area for McDonald's. Unfortunately, just about every other Sox fan from the game had the same idea. It took no time at all to order, but 30 minutes.....at least........to fill it. Then, once we got back on the road, traffic was at a standstill, just about. In general, I hate driving in the rain. I especially hate driving in the rain at night (it started raining again right before we got to McD's). Apparently everyone else does to. Oy.

Long story short (I know...too late), we didn't get home until 0030....1230 am to you civilian types. :P So it was a long day, but a really good one.

Oh yeah. Can't beat it.

:)

Half Century....plus a few

2010-08-15T15:20:00.001-04:00

I hit it pretty hard this morning on the bike. Last night, I mapped out a route to attempt today that would net me 58 miles, including a long, difficult uphill section. I need to go that far and more if I want to do a century (and I do). The long, hard uphill is also necessary, because the Lake Tahoe Century has a couple of big, steep hills. Conditioning will be key.

Alas, I made a couple wrong turns this morning. Here's the route I planned.

<a href="http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/ny/ballston-spa/573128182294321039">Plan for Long Sunday</a> <a href="http://www.mapmyride.com/find-ride/united-states/ny/ballston-spa">Find more Bike Rides in Ballston Spa, New York</a>

And here's the one I took.

<a href="http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/ny/ballston-spa/496128188500817371">Half Century Plus</a> <a href="http://www.mapmyride.com/find-ride/united-states/ny/ballston-spa">Find more Bike Rides in Ballston Spa, New York</a>

I ended up going 60.4 miles: more than I planned, but I missed out on the big hill climb. It's just as well, though, because boy was I HURTING at the end. Holy cow, the last 15 miles were not fun. And when it was over....well, I don't recall my legs hurting that much after the marathons I ran a few years back! Perhaps I overdid this one. Before today, my longest ride was 48 miles. Based on that, I quipped a few weeks ago that I thought a half-century was a whole lot easier than a half marathon. Methinks I was incorrect in that, after today. Ouch!

That's ok though. Soon after I got back, the Admiral and I loaded up the Midshipmen in the car and went to get a late breakfast. I got a breakfast quesadilla and chocolate milk. I heard about a medical study a few weeks back on a science and skepticism podcast that I listen to (The Skeptics Guide to the Universe) which found that chocolate milk is better for post-workout recovery than all the sports drinks out there. That was all the encouragement I needed, and now I stock up on chocolate milk whenever I think to. :) After breakfast, we ran a few errands, and now we're back home watching The Fox and the Hound with the kiddos. I'm feeling a lot better already, though the legs are still rubbery.

One bit of annoyance during the ride: the headset to my new iphone. The iphone 4 came with Apple's cool new headphones with integrated controls for features like volume, answering calls, and making a voice command phone call. Mine got shorted out or something during a ride in the rain, so I started using the Admirals, since she never uses hers. Those are now shot too. I guess dripping sweat onto the little control bud must have shorted it out or something. For the first 45 minutes or so, all was fine, but then the podcast started skipping around the different places in the episode or different episodes entirely. Then the voice command feature turned on for a moment, followed by a continuous scan through my music repertoire (at about 15-30 second intervals). You can imagine how annoying that was. One time, the voice command feature actually called someone without me even trying to order it! It was an old number, though, and doesn't work anymore, but that could have been weird. At some point, the imapmyride app stopped working for about 20 minutes. I discovered that after getting annoyed with the podcast chicanery and stopping to fish the phone out of the pouch of my camelback to try to fix it. Once I re-started the app, it continued just fine, so I didn't lose anything really (nothing that I couldn't fix on the mapmyride website). But it was really quite annoying!

This had happened with my old iphone too, stopping when I swapped out with a new headset back before I upgraded phones. So that makes 3 headsets that I've gone through in the last 3 months. Clearly this ain't working. I think I'm going to shop for a bluetooth headset, to avoid the cable shorting issue. I just hope there's one out there that will let me control at least some of the phones features beyond just answering calls. And that is a full headset, not just a bud in one ear (gotta have stereo music, after all). I guess we'll see what's out there.

Fun, Good News, and Stupidity

2010-08-13T21:23:00.001-04:00

Lots of stuff to write about tonight. Geez, where to start. With the fun, I guess.

A week or two ago, I discovered another cool sailing/cruising blog called Zero To Cruising. Mike and Rebecca are from Ontario, Canada. They bought themselves a nice cruising catamaran: a PDQ 32 and, a few weeks ago, set out on a long-term cruise to....wherever. When I discovered their blog, their tale resonated with me, for a couple reasons. First, I really like the idea of just sailing away on one's boat to explore and have adventures; when I'm done with the Navy (and now, with raising the kids), I want to do the same thing. Second, back when I had just graduated from College, I toyed with the idea of forgoing the apartment and furniture thing in favor of living on a sailboat. I researched several different models of boat while pondering that idea. Two of those I looked into were the PDQ 32 and its bigger sister, the PDQ 36. I decided against the liveaboard plan then, but I remember being very impressed with the PDQ boats, though I never set foot on one.

Anyway, Mike and Rebecca sailed south across Lake Ontario and then into the Erie Canal. When I discovered their blog, they were just nearing the Canal. I forwarded their website to the Admiral's email, saying that we should hook up with them when they get to the Albany area. I left a comment on their blog suggesting the same thing, and sure enough, yesterday we all hooked up for dinner. The Admiral and I met them at the waterfront in Waterford, NY. We found their boat no problem. They left a note directing us a few boats down; there we found them and a few friends having a beer. It was a fun group. We hung out for a while, but after a little bit the four of us took off for dinner. The Admiral and I drove past a place in Clifton Park called Peddlers that we wanted to go to, but as it was a BAR and grill, it didn't seem appropriate to bring the kids to. Last night we had a sitter, though, so we decided to take Mike and Rebecca there.

It was a very cool place. Shoot, it even had its own valet parking. Of course, I was leery about paying for a valet, but when they said "It's free", we all poured out of the car faster than you can say "Go!" Peddler's ended up being cooler than we thought. There was a band playing, and the bassist looked just like Hulk Hogan! After they stopped, it turned into Karaoke night. I know, I know, everyone is cringing. But the folks who sang while we ate were really good! So was the food, for that matter. The only down point of dinner was when we were talking about the valet and I went into my pocket to find the ticket....and couldn't. Images of having to get a cab home flashed through my head....and probably everyone else's....but then I saw a ticket on the railing behind Rebecca. When we left, it ended up being the correct ticket. I guess it fell out of my pocket but someone picked it up and left it on the railing. Lucky!

After dinner, we went back to the waterfront and got a tour of their boat. I was very impressed. It had plenty of room for a couple, a ridiculously secure cockpit, and was overall very nicely put together. Great boat!

So that was the fun part.

The good news is on the baby front. Kid #3 is on the way, as I'm sure I posted before. A few weeks ago, during an ultrasound, the technician at the Admiral's OB saw a cyst in the kid's brain. This got the Docs thinking about a condition called Triso-something 18, which leads to stillbirth...or a very short lifespan after birth. They referred the Admiral to a high-risk OB office for a level 2 ultrasound. I took off early from work today to go with her. Verdict: the cyst went away on its own and there is no sign of any problem with the baby. Gee, that's a shock! I say that tongue-in-cheek because, in my experience, almost every time someone starts freaking out about the worst possible circumstance, it never ends up coming true. Now, I realize that real people do have this condition, but I gotta think it's fretted about far more often than it ends up coming true. In fact, the high risk Doc backed this up: she said that 90% of cases that are referred to her end up being nothing. So great news, even if neither I nor the Admiral were surprised to receive it.

The stupidity occurred at the OB too.

Two black ladies were in the waiting room when we got there: a pregnant lady and her friend, sister, or something. The pregnant lady got called to the window and given some paperwork to fill out. She brought it back to her seat next to her friend and started bitching and moaning about the racial portion of the information sheet. "Black", she said, "don't they know it's African American? How offensive!" Those who know me know I can't stand bigotry, but I also can't sophistry or idiocy. So I piped up "The offensive thing is that it lists anything under race other than human. There's no fricking difference, after all." The Admiral then added "Yeah, who gives a damn about that stuff". We both judge people by whether they're douchebags or not, not by whether they are more resistant to sunburn than we are. Both ladies, though, gave me a long-suffering look, but shut up. A minute later, the pregnant one went in to her appointment. I looked over at her friend, who gave me a half-hearted flash of a smile before looking away. I think I embarrassed them, or at least shamed them into stopping their conversation.

But seriously though, I have no doubt those ladies aren't offended at all by the National Association for the Advancement of COLORED People, the United NEGRO College Fund, or the Congressional BLACK Caucus, or any number of other organizations that make millions of dollars dividing people along racial lines while claiming to be the ones who aren't racist. This sort of selective, fake sensitivity is repugnant to me, and ought to be to everyone. Hypocrites! Bigots! They all ought to be tarred and feathered, then run out of town on a rail.

I could go on, but I'm too annoyed.

Good night, all.

Old Sailing Stories (Pt 2)

2010-08-13T17:24:00.000-04:00

Continuing my trend of reposting items from the Cruisers Forum, here's the tale of my exploits on July 4, 2008.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I think this weekend was great. I'd be interested in hearing any amusing or cool stories that you might have. I know a lot of you folks aren't from the USA, but you probably have good weekend stories anyway. So, let's hear em!

Here's my July 4th story.

The last few months have been full of hatch repairs, porthole rebedding, and varnish work, but I met my goal of having Icefire ready for sail on the 4th. The plan: Head across the Bay from Annapolis to a crab shack on the eastern shore, feast, sail back and anchor in Annapolis harbor for fireworks. The crew: me, the Admiral, our 7-month old daughter, my cousin, and my in-laws (my mom joined us at the crab shack).

Underway time was a bit later than I'd planned, so by the time we got down the Severn abeam the Naval Academy, I realised that getting across the bay and back probably was a bit ambitious. So we changed crab shack destination to Cantler's off of Whitehall Bay. Mom was going to get our table, and we had some time to kill, so we spent some time just putzing around. Between crewing on OPBs for the last few months and reading on this forum and others, I have a much better understanding of mainsail trim than I did the last time I had her out. So in the nice wind we had that afternoon, we all had a great time sailing about, practicing tacking, gybing, and trimming. Great beer and margaritas helped of course.

I ended up having to backtrack a bit on the way to Cantler's because I made an error reading the chart, but we got there easily enough (although a bit later than planned). The Admiral and her parents had never been to a MD crab shack before, and they were suitably impressed. Talk about good timing: it started raining AFTER we'd been seated under cover. About an hour or so there let that small rainfall pass by, and we got back underway (with Mom joining us) to the news of a big storm down south near St Mary's on the VHF weather circuits.

Between the weather warnings and seeing the clouds down south, I opted to just motor back to Annapolis and pondered nixing the anchoring-out plan. It took about an hour to get back, during which time we heard more reports on the storm, and heard that it was heading east. It looked like we were in the clear as we approached the anchorage (filled with hundreds of boats). I saw the security boats around the Academy (where the fireworks were) and heard on the VHF that the fireworks were still on. So after a couple minutes of discussion, we went ahead and set the hook.

Now, Icefire is a Sabre 28, weighing in at about 7500 pounds, and I'd not anchored her before (though I have anchored other vessels). My only anchor is a 20 lb CQR with about 20 ft of chain and the rest rope. I wasn't entirely sure how well she'd hold, so after backing down to set the anchor, I stayed on deck for a while to see if we were dragging or not. Our position looked good compared to the other boats, but as I looked south, that storm that was supposedly heading east sure looked like it was heading right for us, as there was a clear front-line coming in and the wind was picking up. Right then we heard the USCG warning about the storm, and I think they advertised 50 kt winds. That made me think about leaving. My mom turning pale and almost begging to just go back to the slip made me think more of it. So I started the motor and tried to haul up the anchor. Well, by that time, the wind was at least 30 kts, and there was too much tension on the anchor line to get it to move at all. The only options were staying put or cutting the line. Seeing that the anchor was holding fast and that the storm was on us already, it seemed to me that the safest thing was to just wait it out and be ready to move if we dragged. So we hunkered down under the dodger and belowdecks while I monitored our position relative to the other boats closely.

It was while doing this that I noticed the boat anchored next to us was another Sabre 28! How cool is that?

Anyway, after ~30 mins the storm passed, and Mom was all smiles. "Wow, that was really neat" she said. Funny how panic changed into enjoyment so quickly. Actually, I was very pleased too: we didn't drag at all. GPS position throughout the blow was pretty much static. I guess that little 20 lb anchor was enough for the boat afterall (or I am just so good at setting anchors that my skill made up for whatever shortfalls the anchor may have......or I was just lucky). Some guys weren't so lucky though. I heard one VHF call about an unmanned vessel dragging anchor right toward the seawall. That's a bad night in the works right there.

So now every jackass with a VHF was calling and asking if the Annapolis fireworks were still on. We could tell the Coast Guard (and several other people on the net) was getting pissed about using 16 to talk fireworks instead of distress or hailing. Finallly, after it was annouced 6 times that we'd be told if it was cancelled or not, the word got out that the fireworks were still on. And sure enough, right on time at 2115, we had the best seat in the house. Great show! The other boats helped, too. A couple boats over, there were a couple ladies singing the national anthem, followed by America the Beautiful. Then they sang them again.....and again.....and again..... 'Nuff said.

Once the fireworks were over, we weighed anchor and headed back to our slip on Saltworks creek. Probably the most amusing quote from the night happened as we motored up the Severn. My mom looked at me and said "This is a great way to get around. What are we doing, about 25 or so?" I had to work hard to not laugh as I told her "No mom, we're going 5 kts by GPS".

So anyway, it was a great day out on the Bay and in the harbor, and a great return to sailing trim for Icefire.

It was a fun day, and definitely a great view of the fireworks. I could have done without the continuous singing from that other boat, though. I'm a patriot, but the same two songs over and over and over and over and over and over...... you get the point.

More to follow....again.....

Old Sailing Stories (Pt 1)

2010-08-13T16:26:00.003-04:00

Looking back over this blog, I've spent a lot of time talking about my adventures and mis-adventures on Icefire, my sailboat. The other day, I realized that there are a lot of great stories missing that happened before I left on my ICW trip last fall. I posted a lot of them on the Cruisers Forum, but for my own edification I'm going to re-post them here (if only so I can find and reference them more easily).

Now follows the tale of my maiden voyage on Icefire, and one of my first posts on Cruisers Forum (back in the summer of 2008). Prepare to cringe in horror.

Hi folks,

So it's summer of 2006, and I purchased my first sailboat. I'd learned to sail with the Navy several years back, and I'd gone out on several boats with my dad and some friends, but I never owned one and I'd always wanted to. So I decided to take the plunge. My better half (girlfriend at the time) seemed a bit leery at first, but she decided to take sailing lessons. She loved it, and became really excited about having a boat. We lived in Portsmouth, NH at the time, and found Icefire, our Sabre 28, in Yarmouth ME, about 60 - 70 nm north. I had acquired a mooring at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, and just needed to bring the boat down the coast. Given the distance, and wanting to make the trip in a day, I planned to leave early in the morning (I was thinking underway at 0700 or so - it was early July, so that gave me another 12 hours +/- until darkness in that area of the world - at 5 kts, that's plenty of time, right?) and be willing to just motor if the wind wasn't favorable. Thus, I asked the boatyard to commission the boat and make sure the tanks were topped off. I bought NOAA charts of the entire route (and studied them) as well as CMAP charts for the boat's chartplotter. I felt ready, so the night before, I loaded the dinghy atop the truck and packed up as much as was feasible.

The plan started to fall apart almost immediately. Of course, even though we got up early, SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed) and I didn't get out of the house until well past my planned underway time. And of course we had to stop for more munchies. So we got to the boatyard at ~10. Then I put the dinghy in and paddled her over to the boat, and we got things situated aboard. And then we waited, because her parents really wanted to come on the cool first cruise, and who were we to disappoint? While we were waiting, I noticed that the GPS wasn't getting a fix, and the unit thought it was still 2004 (apparently the last time that the previous owner had taken her out). This puzzled me, because GPS receives date/time info from the sattelites themselves, and I spent some time rifling through the manual trying to figure out how to reset it. I was annoyed at it, but not worried, because I had good charts and I know visual navigation rules. So after a few minutes, I said "screw it" and went to check out other things on the boat....but I didn't check the gas tank (I assumed the boatyard topped it off when they did the water, like I asked).

Well, the in-laws finally arrived, and we got underway just after noon. The first bit of calamity occured not 1/4 mile from the dock, going down the river. We approached another small marina on the north side of the river, and I noticed a green buoy maybe 20 feet from the end of the pier. Now, I know it's "red right returning" in the states, but that green guy seemed just too close to the dock to actually be a channel marker......but it was. As we approached the dock, we stopped quickly, the keel in silt. Well, great, the the tide was going out, and so were other boats, and there we sat (meanwhile, my girlfriend and her parents were looking at me, the professional naval officer, with no small amount of amusement and consternation). Fortunately, skulling the rudder and jockeying the throttle on the motor ahead and backwards got us clear, and I got back into the channel where I was supposed to be, feeling a bit chastened and embarrassed. But that's ok, we got down-river and out to Penobscot Bay, and once again all was good.

Except that there was almost no wind, except in spurts. And while I and SWMBO had some sailing experience, her Mom had none, and her dad had very little. Tacking just wasn't going well in the light air, so after an hour or two of trying to make decent way under sail, I restarted the engine and motored us past Portland and Peaks Island, heading south to Portsmouth.

So once more life was good. A few hours later (about 1730), we're nearing Biddeford, Maine, and I start thinking about the timeline. I knew there was no way we could make Portsmouth before dark, but I'd been studying the navigation aids around Portsmouth a lot in preparation for getting my submarine underway from the shipyard in the fall, and I knew the Piscataqua river well. The approaches, though, I didn't feel good about, and with the GPS out, I was hesitant to continue. I thought about pulling into the harbor at Biddeford for the night. I saw a yacht club on the chart plotter; it wouldn't have been hard. I took a minute to try to get the GPS working. Sure enough, in a few minutes, I found out how to reset the unit, and soon we had a good fix and the chartplotter was showing our track nicely. Feeling more confident, I decided to press, figuring that at worst we'd make Kennebunk by nightfall and we could stop there if we wanted to, or just push on to Portsmouth. Even if we lingered outside the river mouth until morning, it would be better than stopping, right?

We rounded the point passing south of Biddeford, and lo and behold, we encountered actual wind: a good 12-15 kt westerly that promised good close-reaching or close-hauled sailing for a while. So we hoisted sail once again.

Now, this was the first time for any of us on this particular boat, and the Sabre 28 likes to heel (I've since comes to appreciate that Icefire likes to go to 25-30 degrees and just sit there). It had been some time for me since I'd heeled over that far, SWMBO's only experience was in 420s and had thoughts of capsizing, and her folks didin't know what to think. The sudden heel to 25 degrees or so freaked us all out (even the dog). Everyone started screaming, so I dumped the mainsheet and turned up, and we lowered the sails and returned to motor (having decided to just get there and get used sailing the boat later).

15 minutes later, the engine died.

Yep, you guessed it. Out of gas. Apparently, the tank WASN'T topped off before we left, afterall.

So now what? Well, looking at the chartplotter, I found the phone number to Biddeford Pool yacht club. A quick cell phone call later, they agreed to let us tie up at their sole remaining mooring buoy for the night. I told the guy on the phone (who was on his way out the door to go home) that we were out of gas, and could he have someone come out to help us? The answer was, of course, no but the channel's easy and you ought to be able to sail right to the mooring, then take the dinghy to get gas.

So, I unrolled the genoa and gybed back toward Biddeford. On a broad reach on genoa alone, we made 5 knots back to the channel entrance, and I was feeling good again. But the sun was setting, and as I turned into the channel, I realised that we were turning dead into the wind, so we'd have to tack our way into the mooring area. We'd not had much luck with tacking well earlier, but we did ok for a while. But as the light faded, I began to think it'd probably be better to head out the channel and figure out a different plan. We were tending to lose control of the boat at the end of tacks as we lost hull speed, and I knew there was a big rocky island to the north, maybe a quarter of a mile away.

At some point, I realised it would be a hell of a lot easier to tack if I'd just raise the main and furl the genoa, with the mainsheet traveller right behind me and no winches to screw around with So after a tack, I had SWMBO and her dad raise the mainsail. Well naturally, no sooner did we do that than we completely lost it through the next tack. The genoa was luffing like mad, we were making almost no way, and the main was now only hurting matters because I had no steerageway, but the wind and current were setting us north to the rocks. Looking at the chartplotter, I realised we were in big trouble and were going to hit the rocks.....soon. SWMBO and her dad were still up forward, so I shouted "Drop the anchor!"

"How????" was the response. Oh, crap!

By the time I rushed up to the bow and released the anchor, we were maybe 50 ft from the rocky island, literally, and it was way too late. We slide into a crevice between two rocks and started getting pummeled by waves.

So now everyone was really REALLY scared. I made MAYDAY calls on CH 13, 16, 9 and received no response. So we broke out our trusty Boat-US cards and called for towing help. "Sure," they said, "we'd love to help. Our towboat is in Portland. He can leave right now." Crap! It took us 2.5 hrs or so for us to get there from Portland, and towboats don't go fast, so that wasn't going to work. The BoatUS operator connected us to the Maine Marine Patrol, who asked if we'd be willing to pay any costs of assistance. Naturally, we said "Hell yes!".

For about the next 20 minutes, we sat against the rocks, being knocked about. SWMBO's dad and I managed to pull us off the worst of them by hauling in the anchor line as much as we could. We were hopeful we might be able to extricate ourselves completely, but the rudder and keel wedged between a couple of rocks, and we'd gotten as far out as we could.

Finally the Marine Patrol showed up. When they arrived, I conveniently removed my Navy ball cap and hid it, then helped them make up their lines to us. In short order, they had us off the rocks and heading to the Yacht Club pier. They had to cut our anchor line, but another boat of theirs stayed behind to retrieve the anchor itself.

When we got to the yacht club, the manager showed up (smelling of alcohol), and asked who the hell we were and generally behaved like an ass. He gave us 5 gallons of gas, but made it clear that he didn't want us there. The Marine Patrol officer told him that we were to remain at his pier, and gave us his card for help in the morning getting a tow to a local boat yard for haulout and inspection. Well, no sooner did he leave than the manager told us we could use the mooring, but we couldn't stay at the pier, nevermind what Law Enforcement just said, or that we were a vessel that was just in distress. I coudl have, and probably should have pressed the issue, but I was in no mood for a pissing contest. I quickly tested the rudder and made sure the engine would start, and then we cast off.

Well, quickly we realised we had problems still, because although I had the wheel hard right, we were turning left! We were doing donuts in the water just off the dock, and the manager started yelling at us! After making it clear that we couldn't steer, he had his boys get into a boat and tow us to the mooring. We actually spent a rather nice night on the boat once we were moored, amazingly.

The next morning, I hopped in the water to survey the rudder, hoping that there was an easy fix to the problem so we could maneuver ourselves to the boat yard. I'd checked the bilge many times throughout the ordeal and the rest of the night, and we hadn't taken ANY water onboard, so I was hopeful that we may have escaped really serious damage.

My hopes seemed confirmed when I found a lobster pot buoy wedged between the rudder and the hull. No wonder we were having trouble with helm control during those last few tacks! We'd snagged a buoy!

The buoy removed, I clambered up the boarding ladder, full of high hopes. But as I turned the wheel and observed the rudder post, I realised that it wasn't turning all the way.

So we went ashore on the yacht club's launch and got picked up by SWMBO's brother, and arranged for the boat to be towed and hauled.

It turns out that the rudder stock had bent and twisted , so that the rudder could not turn to starboard without contacting the hull. The seals held, though. The rudder had to be replaced, some denting in the keel re-shaped, and the bottom paint redone, but that was it. I'll tell you, Progressive did a great job helping us out with the bill. I'd literally had a policy with them for 2 weeks, and they didn't give me any problems with an $8,000 claim.

The really annoying part of the whole thing is that we'd been delayed for a month getting the rudder fixed from some problems that the pre-buy survey found, and now we were replacing it! Oh well....

I have subsequently taken Icefire out on several more successful journeys, but SWMBO hasn't come out that much because we were living apart for almost a year. We just went out last weekend, though, and she commented that she felt really confident before this incident, but not so much since it. So she's going to take some more classes to get back into the swing of things, and we're going to cruise around the Chesapeake as much as we can, now that we're in Annapolis.

So all's well that ends well, I guess. I was really impressed with how tough Sabre made the boat. I know how bad it is to be caught on the rocks in wave action. A lesser boat may have broken apart!

Anyway, I learned a lot of lessons (all of which I already knew from my professional life):

1) Always check the status of all systems and tanks before getting underway.

2) Always carry a backup fuel tank.

3) Don't try to continue with a plan that's already going wrong

4) If you think you should stop for the night, do it! Don't try to push through because you think you can!

5) Be blatent about your need for help, and call for help early. I'll bet I could have gotten the Marine Patrol of someone to run me out a gallon of gas if I loitered outside the channel and called for it.

and finally.....

6) NEVER DO BUSINESS WITH BIDDEFORD POOL YACHT CLUB!!!!!!!!!! THEY'RE A BUNCH OF TOOLS!

That's it. My worst moment onboard my sailboat.

Yeah, that could have gone.....better.....

More to follow.

Now THIS is a great investment

2010-08-13T16:16:00.001-04:00

I came across this video today:

This is about the greatest idea I've heard in a LONG time. If all the PC "understanding" weenies tell us we're racist bigots for not wanting a mosque built practically on the ruins of the World Trade Center, fine. They can't possibly object to this, eh?

Yeah right.

Regardless, let me know where to send the money. I'm SO investing in this bar, if it's really going to be built.

Week in Review/More from Europe

2010-07-18T14:19:00.000-04:00

The first thing to discuss is this morning's ride. It's been a couple weeks since I've gone out for my Sunday ride (or my daily rides to work, for that matter) because of the whole Europe thing. So I took it a little easy today. Just 22 miles.

<a href="http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/ny/ballston-spa/388127945732282418">iMapMyRide: Jul 18, 2010 8:48</a> <a href="http://www.mapmyride.com/find-ride/united-states/ny/ballston-spa">Find more Bike Rides in Ballston Spa, New York</a>

Today's ride was cool, though, because I used the imapmyride application on my iphone for the first time. Well, I've had the app for a while, but my old iphone was the original model: no gps. That eliminated a lot of the value from the app. My new iphone 4 has gps, though, so I can map my rides as I go, vice having to play around with the map online afterwords. Plus, it does cool voice-overs periodically during the ride. I set it for 5 miles. So as I rode, I listened to the Econtalk podcast, and periodically, the app played a voice-over with distance covered, average pace, etc. It also tweeted my progress. Very fun. :)

It's been a busy week. Getting back to work after the trip to Europe wasn't as painful as I thought it would be. Of course, the trip was busy, and fairly tiring, so it was almost more restful this week than last. Less unique, though. I spent a fair amount of time finishing up the final paper for my class this week. It was supposed to be a reflection on what I learned, impressions about the cultures of Austria and the Czech Republic, suggestions on how to improve the trip for future classes, that sort of thing. Referencing my previous entries made during the trip made the process easier, but it still required a number of revisions to get my thoughts properly organized. Initial feedback from the professor was positive, so I guess it turned out well. We'll see when he posts the grades; of course, I kindof have the impression that you have to try to not get an A on this one.

So that just leaves one class this fall, and the MBA's done. Woohoo! I'm definitely ready to be finished. Unfortunately, I'll still have some studying to do. The Navy requires all officers to take joint professional military education classes. Well, Congress does actually. By statute, all military officers have to qualify in joint operations, the theory being the education and qualification process will help the various services to work together. In practice, it just makes for more hoops to jump through. I have no interest whatsoever in this joint crap, but it's a requirement to have the first phase done before going to command as a commander. Now, I know for a fact that I won't be commanding a submarine, but that doesn't mean there aren't other opportunities out there. Plus, having it done, or being on the path to having it done, before the board for promotion to commander next February will probably help my promotion odds. So I'm biting the bullet and starting work on it. Ugh.

Anyway, here are a few things I wasn't able to post from my iphone while I was on the trip.

First, a couple videos I took from the bell tower of St Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna:

And here's a video panorama of Prague, taken from Wencelas' Vineyard just below the Prague Castle:

Changing of the Guard at Prague Castle:

And the World Cup from the Old Town Square in Prague:

So yeah, that was a cool trip. But no doubt that was obvious. :) More pics and stuff to follow.

USA!

2010-07-11T14:57:00.002-04:00

I landed in Newark a short while ago. My itinerary on purchase showed Frankfurt to Cleveland to Albany. It neglected to list Newark as an intermediate stop. To take my current route is idiocy. I'm trying to get my tickets changed to just go straight to Albany. If not, I may just rent a car. 6 hrs when I could drive it in 3 makes no sense at all.

We'll see.

:)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Prague Finale

2010-07-11T06:38:00.000-04:00

Back in Frankfurt again. Not a big fan of this airport. Got a 4 hr layover, and I've been up all night. Rather, we have. Tim, Chuck, Jessica and I all had departing flights from Prague at 0600 this morning. Since that meant getting to the airport by 4ish, we'd need to leave the hotel by 0330. No point in not just staying up and sleeping on the flight.

Well that was the theory. In reality we're a bit punch drunk right now.

Yesterday was full of good stuff. The morning was a walking tour of Praha (Prague). Seems a bit odd to do it the final day in town instead of the first, but I guess that's how the scheduling cookie crumbled. Our guide, Dasha, was a very nice, very knowledgable lady. The best tour guide in Prague, David said, and she did a great job.

We saw a lot more of the city. Duh. First stop was Prague Castle. On the way, we passed by the Parliament houses. We looked at the Senate in detail.

Within the Senate house is a great courtyard and garden that was used in the filming of Amadeus (It was set in Vienna but filmed in Prague...makes sense right?).

Very nice.

The castle itself is on the west side of the Moldau, on a hill overlooking the city.

The President's offices are in there, as well as other national offices, up these stairs.

It is guarded by an honorary guard corps of the Czech Army. They stand watch at the gates; the guard changes every hour. These guys are locked-on in their military bearing.

They reminded me of the guards at Buckingham Palace. But the Czech uniform is better.
Also inside the palace area is the cathedral: gothic, of course.

I'm not a fan of gothic. All those spikes, nooks, and crannies are painful to look at for me. I much prefer baroque: it's more simple, and thus more elegant. Or rather, its forms are more organic and natural. Gothic always seems abrupt, almost discordant, while baroque flows. Not sure if that makes sense.

On the way down the hill, we passed one of the areas where Kafka lived, then came to a city vineyard. There's a nice little cafe/wine bar in the vineyard and a great view of the city.

We passed the WWII memorial next. Simple. I liked it.

Back across a bridge, we came to the concert hall. I didn't know this before coming here, bit Mozart lived in Prague for a while. The debut for Don Giovani happened in this town, and he wrote several other pieces here. Anyway, the concert hall is quite nice. The statues on the balcony ringing the building are all famous composers. Fitting.

Looking downstream from the bridge, one can see the site where a huge statue of Stalin once stood. It was torn down in the 60s after Kruschev publicly called out his multiple crimes (well after his death of course). Not that Kruschev was a good guy himself or anything. In place of the statue, the Czechs erected a huge metronome: a mechanism that keeps time for musicians. You can see it on the hill across the river here.

That sounds like a MUCH better use of space than a 30 meter tribute to a monstrous, murderous tyrant and follower of a bankrupt ideology which needs to be purged from all human memory. But that's just my opinion. Call me silly.

After that, we toured through the Jewish quarter and the new city to Wenceslas Square (previously pictured in the post of my initial flight into Prague last week), site of all the demonstrations that led to the fall of communism back in 1989. There are a couple university buildings near the square that Dasha wanted to show us, then a quick jaunt later, it was off to lunch. Venison Goulash. Mmmmmmmmmmmm.....good stuff!

Dasha left us after lunch to go about her merry way. We went on to the Museum of Communism. It's small, but it does a great job of recording and explaining the terrors of the communist regime. Places like this are important, because while everyone SHOULD know that socialism/communism is inherently immoral, even evil, and completely bereft of any shred of economic viability, there are lots who, whether from ignorance and naïveté or from admiration of and desire for unbridled power, continue to embrace Marx's teachings, no matter how thoroughly history has discredited those teachings. Abject failure every place socialism or communism has been tried, no matter how complete the implementation, should alone be enough to forever cast this philosophy into the dustbin of history. But displays of the inevitable result of the kinds governmental controls socialism and communism seek to implement are needed as another reminder since there are many of Lenin's "useful idiots" who refuse to think or to learn the lessons of history, who think that somehow it will all work this time, with the right person in charge, the right clever regulation, you name it. This of course is a lie, and one made all the worse for its obviousness, given even a very few moments of contemplation.

Not that I have strong feelings on this matter.

We met up again at 6:30 for a final dinner. Again, really good stuff.

We said our fair-wells to David and Gertraud and gave them a thank-you present.

They also had departing gifts for us, so that was fun.

Dinner done, Tim, Jessica, Bonnie, and I hurried over to the old town square for the world cup 3rd place match between Germany and Uruguay. We got there a few minutes before halftime. There was a huge screen erected, showing the match, and the square was full of people watching.

I'm pretty sure Vienna had a similar setup going on, but we never made it out to see it. We heard the roar of the crowd when Germany lost in the semi-final game, though. You may recall we got back to Vienna from our country excursion just in time for that to happen. Well Germany didn't lose this time. Uruguay put up a good fight, but in the end, they came up short. It came down to the wire though. Good match. It was wicked cool watching in the square. Obviously.

The rest of the night we spent getting ready to leave and hanging out. The taxi was late this morning, and too small. The hotel front desk told the cab company there were four of us. With bags. But the guy showed up in a little sedan, with a bunch of boxes already in his trunk. We made it work, though, and got to the airport in plenty of time to make our flight.

So that's that. As I finish this, I'm at 34,000 ft, heading west over Ireland. The journey is almost complete. I have to write a paper by Saturday, detailing what I learned on the trip, then that's all she wrote for this course. That just leaves one more, Strategic Management, in the fall and the MBA is done, with a focus in international business. It'll be good to be done.

More to follow upon arrival at home. I have lots of pictures (over 750) and some videos, to upload, and a few more things to share here before I close out this particular chapter.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Out in the country

2010-07-10T19:14:00.001-04:00

Update (12 July): running through my blogger posts from my computer at home, I found the original of this post. For some reason, it was filed on June 4th, instead of July 7th. I adjusted the date, so if you look now you'll see this post again. I don't feel like deleting either of them, though, because it took a bit of effort to type them. So now there is a bit of redundancy in my journal. Oh well....

Reposting the events of Wednesday, 7 July, since the original post was lost while uploading from my phone. Annoying, especially considering it took me at least an hour to write it! Anyway, here we go. Again.

We spent Wednesday away from Vienna. Our Professors got a tour bus, and we all piled in a bit before 0900. The destinations: a high-end Austrian cosmetics company that sells all over the world, the Melk Abbey, the village of Durnstein with its ruined castle and a great chocolate store, and a great Austrian winery for dinner.

The Styx corporation is based in a little town in the Austrian countryside (I forget the town name). It's small (only 35 employees), but ships its products, high end cosmetics, soaps, and stuff to buyers all over the world.

Their head of exports met us and toured us through their village, then showed us their store where we could try samples and buy some product if we wanted.

I was surprised at the apparent lack of business going on; their buildings were quiet and there wasn't much hustle and bustle. Folks were working, just not many that I saw. However, it is holiday time. The CEO is off for a month (the average Austrian gets 5 or 6 weeks of vacation, if memory serves). Probably a lot of others followed his lead. Regardless, their products are supposed to be top notch. They use all natural ingredients: rose petals from Hungary, lavender from Provence in France, cream from goat's mill, things like that. I hope their stuff is as good as it's supposed to be because got the Admiral a little something from their shop. :)

The next stop was Melk Abbey, a monastery located a full day's travel by horse from Wien (Vienna). Its location made it a common place to stop for the night, whether coming or going from the city. There are many guest rooms set up for that purpose, including a full wing to support it Imperial court, should he decide to stop in (and he did, regularly). There are still monks there these days, 30 of them, doing what monks do, including running a private school. About 900 kids ages 10 - 18 go to school there, for 84 Euro/month. Not a bad tuition considering the location! Here's the entrance courtyard:

And the ballroom in the imperial guest wing:

The view off the rear of the abbey doesn't suck.

Neither does the library.

They didn't use enough gold in the church, though. Ghetto! I mean geez guys, have some pride!

So Melk is a cool place. I've been a lot of places and seen a few monasteries before, but never one like this. I was amazed!

After Melk, we drove down the bank of the Danube to Durnstein. It's a very quaint little town. Not too old: it just has buildings that date from 1453!

It's got vineyards and a nice church, restaurants and shops. It's also got ruins of an old castle in the hills above town.

We climbed up to check it out. It was a steep trail, but I made it up no problem. Great view from up there.

We spent an hour and a half or so in Durnstein, then hit the road again. We crossed the Danube into the town of Maurten and stopped at the Nicolaihoff Winery. It's built on the site of an ancient roman chapel and then an early medieval monastery. The wine cellar itself dates back over 1500 years!

Turns out the place is owned by Gertraud's sister (Gertraud is one of our professors, if I hadnt mentioned it before; the other is David, her husband) and her husband, though their son Nicholas runs it now. I asked her how long their family had owned it (it came from her husband's side); she replied "Not long, just 114 years". I had long been told about the difference in thinking between Europeans and Americans when it comes to history and age, but it never really hit home until this trip. Gertraud repeatedly pointed out buildings, saying this one is new, just 150 years old. Her sister, when she showed us the wine cellar, said the walls were brand new, just redone 350 years ago! Now, any of those timeframes are long to American ears, but they take it as routine, a matter of course. That's the effect of 2000+ years of continuous history, I guess. We're just working on 400 or so. 234 if you just count from Independence. It's just interesting to think about.

Getting back to it, they greeted us properly, with some really good wine!

After a couple glasses, we got the tour. Unfortunately, my camera battery died shortly after getting there, so I only have a few shots.

Their winepress room is great. The family was strapped for cash after WWII, so instead of buying modern press equipment to replace what they lost during the war, they obtained a millenium-old winepress and decided to do it old-school! It works by using the weight of a huge beam of wood, balanced on a fulcrum, to press grapes, which are loaded into the drum and then covered. The juice squeezes out the bottom of the drum, along grooves in the wood floor, and through a drain to their casks in the wine cellar. It apparently works really well.

She went into detail about how they grow and produce their wine. They proudly follow bio-dynamic farming practices, which are more than a little kooky and superstitious if you ask me, but it doesn't hurt anything, so whatever floats their boat. I was appalled, when she proudly proclaimed that they never used modern medicine while raising their kids: no medication, no vaccination, just herbals and homeopathy. I mean.....seriously???? You seriously didn't vaccinate your kids???? That is gross negligence and irresponsibility. You can fool yourself with homeopathy to your heart's delight, but reducing the herd immunity to all these horrible diseases that were once wiped out puts others at risk. Uncool.

But that's not the focus of this trip.

Their wine casks are cool. They have a special cask named after each child in the family, carved with the birthday, the child's name, and an image that relates to him/her somehow. That is sweet, actually.

Tour compete, we had a great dinner, bought some wine, and piled in for Vienna. We got back just as Germany lost in the semi-final match of the World Cup. There were a number of disappointed people in town that night! We didn't stay out too late, but we did go get a couple beers to commemorate our final night in Wien.

Overall, the stay in Vienna was very satisfying. Ridiculous heat the first couple nights aside, it was a lot of fun, and I learned a lot.

Definitely need to get back there someday. Even if I didn't like it, I promised the Admiral, since she couldn't come on this visit, they I'd take her later. Can't break that promise.

:)

Revised Opinion - Prague

2010-07-10T10:10:00.000-04:00

It's been a busy day and a half. I find I need to revise my previous statement comparing the two cities. Prague does have a very different feel and energy than Vienna, but young compared with stuck in the past? That's not quite right. Both have a long history and rightly cherish it. But Prague, and the Czech Republic as a whole, is in a groove, growing fast economically. Austria is more established. Austrians are proper and follow the rules; Czechs are flexible. Even without having read that about them, just the nature of their two cities, and how people go about their business, plays that out.

I've found my attitude shifting over the last day. At first, while I liked Prague, I was I guess a bit disappointed in it. Maybe the pickpocket incident shaded my thinking more than I thought. But the rabbit warren that is the old city put me off a bit, and some of the architecture is, well, gloomy, almost darkly industrial.

Not sure if these shots really show what I'm getting at. Regardless, if yesterday at noon you'd told me that I had to choose one of these cities to live in, I would have said Vienna. It's not that I didn't like Prague, it's just..... You know how there are some places that instantly click in your psyche, and you say "I love this place"? Several places did that for me: Charleston, Singapore, Brisbane, Boston, London, St Augustine. Vienna probably makes that list. There is another list, one of great towns that I appreciate a lot and recognize their coolness, but that I just didn't fall in love with and won't work really hard to get back to: Seattle, San Francisco, Tokyo, to name a few. And then there is the "God I hate this town" list: New York, LA, DC, Orlando, anywhere in Connecticut. Prague was probably on the second list.

That first impression was based almost exclusively on the Old Town portion of the city. Yesterday and today we've good to see more, and I'm liking Prague a lot more. I think if I lived here I just wouldn't go to Old Town often.

Yesterday morning we went to the US Embassy and met with guys from the State and Commerce departments who are on staff here. We had a good talk about US-Czech relations, trade, what the embassy does to support companies considering foreign investment and/or beginning or expanding exports to the country, how the foreign service career works, and matters of that nature.

It was a good meeting. Then, in the afternoon we left the central city area and visited the biggest Czech bank.

Out where their building stands, the area is more like a modern city, with tall windowed buildings and big streets. Quite different from Old Town.

The discussion in the bank was twofold: a breakdown on the bank's business, including recent and forecast growth and its performance during the financial crisis, and a presentation about the Czech Republic's macro-economic position.

Pretty informative, but the first of their briefs left my head bobbing. NOT the most dynamic brief I've ever been to.

Those two outings took us to other areas of the town, and helped improve my feelings about the city. Today's walking toured helped even more.

More on that later.

Last night we were itching fir good old-fashioned American food, so we hit the local Hard Rock Cafe.

It was big: 3 stories high.

The food was more expensive than we've become used to here, but it was good. We were happy to have gone.

There's a lot more to say about today's excursions, but for now I'm taking a nap. I've got an all-nighter ahead, since I'll have to leave the hotel at 0330 to get to the airport for my 0600 flight. In retrospect, maybe that scheduling wasn't the best plan, but done is done.

More to follow.
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First impressions

2010-07-09T10:28:00.000-04:00

Prague. Interesting town. Cool town. Edgy.

Definitely a lot different from Vienna. Where Vienna is ordered and is more or less laid out in a plan, at least the inner city....if you consider a ring around the city that makes it easy to get around a plan, Prague just rambles. There are talk old buildings and narrow winding streets; it's easy to lose your way. Our hotel is right in the middle of the old tourist district, which is cool and convenient, but that puts us right in the middle of the maze. It took us a little while to learn to navigate it. That's not to say the entire city is a maze. There are a number of plazas and squares; Wenceslas Square in particular is huge! And once you get out of the central touristy area, the streets widen. This pic looks from one end of the square to the other: it's probably a km across or longer.

Other street shots:

The Moldau river cuts through town, adding to its aesthetics. It really is a pretty town.

The people are much less orderly than the Viennese. Folks walk in the street (unavoidable at times because of their small size), and there's a big press of folks milling around most times. While I saw some graffiti in Austria, it was only along railways where it's not generally visible. In Prague, there's graffiti everywhere. Vienna is meticulously maintained; Prague has chipped paint and crumbling facades. There's in general a more rowdy feel to the city.

This especially shows after dark. The clubs open up and folks wander and have fun. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your perspective, there are strip clubs and cabarets almost on every corner. There are so many the clubs hire guys to recruit customers to their particular club. They apply the hard sell and really don't take no for an answer. Even if you clearly express that you have no interest in their club, they'll follow along espousing its virtues until you about want to beat them. Now, I would hope that not everyone gets this treatment, but the presence of two ladies in our group of young(er) guys didn't dissuade them. Maybe we just look like tourists.

Other things that you see here that were not to be found in Vienna (at least the part of Vienna we visited): streetwalking hookers and pickpockets. I got propositioned a couple times walking back from the bar last night. I didn't partake, of course. One member of our group caught a pickpocket in the act of lifting his wallet earlier in the evening. He and the guy he was with chased the villain, intending to pummel him, but he got away. That alerted us to THAT particular danger. However, I did not anticipate the angle MY pickpocket experience would take. As I neared the hotel, a woman approached me. She was a bit older than me and looks Persian or Turkish. She walked right up to me and asked me to take her, then grabbed where only the Admiral should. I tried to push her away but she was insistent, grabbing and pawing and practically pushing me into the wall. Very quickly I became annoyed, then suspicious. Hookers are NOT this aggressive. I reached down, grabbed her arm, and lookie what we had there: the cash from my pocket, clutched in her (not-so-hot) little hand! I snatched the money back and shoved her away. She muttered something in Czech and scurried off. Very quickly checking, I found nothing missing. A nearby cabby, who witnessed the whole thing, wagged his finger and said "you have to be careful". Thanks for the tip, buddy. And the assist.

So that was my little adventure. Despite that little mishap, I still like it here. While it's a bit less safe, it's also more energetic than Vienna, which, while elegant stately and enjoyable, seemed a lot slower and more focused on the past in some ways. Prague almost feels more young, if that makes any sense.

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Prague Arrival

2010-07-08T12:19:00.002-04:00

Well, we got here. Just checked in. My room is a LOT nicer than in Vienna.

Unfortunately I lost an entire, long, blog post about the last day in Austria. It took a LONG time to write, so I'm annoyed. I'll re-compose it later.

It's good to be in Prague though. We're taking a short walking tour now. More later

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Bratislava

2010-07-08T07:47:00.000-04:00

This morning we left the hotel at 0845, loaded out bags into a tour bus, and set out down the road for Prague. We didn't go straight there, though. The Professors wanted to show us Bratislava, across the border in Slovakia. Good call on their part. It's a neat town, and I enjoyed our few hours there. The touristy area is all old-school buildings, cobblestone or flagstone roads and walkways, and no cars. Get outside that area and it's more like every other city: larger more modern buildings, cars and pedestrians coexisting, that sort of thing.

One cool thing: three of us ventured into the modern area of town to try to find a new memory stick for Mike's Sony Camera. He used all the space on it and needed a new one. Of course, with Sony you can't just plug in any card; you have to use their proprietary cards. And naturally, his camera is an older model and we couldn't find a card that worked for him. That sucked, but we did find the Slovakian Seers.

This story had everything; it was a great big department store. You can't find something like that in Vienna. Or at least we never saw one. So that was cool.

On our way back to meet everyone for lunch, we looked up at the roof of the building next to the US Embassy and saw a girl taking her clothes off, and photographers taking pictures. That was cool, obviously.

Upon closer inspection, she was wearing a bikini, but it was still a fun distraction for a few minutes. ;)

Anyway, lunch was good. Pork and bread dumplings. Folks love their dumplings over here, and that's a fact. Good stuff!

After that, it was time for the bus again. Next stop: Prague!

Austria Countryside

2010-07-07T18:34:00.000-04:00

Update: I thought this was lost in the upload from my iphone, but apparently it just got mis-filed under June 4, instead of July 7. Werid. So now there are two of the same post. Oh well; it's fixed now.

Our trip into the countryside yesterday was very full. The agenda: the Styx company (a small but internationally distributed cosmetics firm), Melk Abbey (a monastery), the town of Durnstein, and a Wachau-region winery for dinner. Lots to do! It was a good time, but my phone battery totally died shortly after reaching to winery, so my documentation is incomplete.

The Styx company only employs 35 people, but it makes and sells all over the world. They buy rose petals from Romania, lavender from Provence in France, and the like, distill the components down to their fragrant essences and then make creams, shampoo, that sort of thing. They have a pretty nice little operation, and take pride in using only all-natural components that convert into a quality product.

Hopefully their stuff is as good as they claim: I picked up a couple things for the Admiral.

Next stop: Melk Abbey. Now, I've visited old monasteries before, but never one like this.

This is the first courtyard when you walk in. The monastery is a day's ride on horseback from Vienna, so lots of travelers, the imperial court included, would stop for the night or a day or two on the way two or from the city. The monastery is still in use. There are 30 Benedictine monks in residence. The do monk-like things: keeping up the library, studying and praying, and teaching. The monastery holds a private school that's attended by 900 kids from 10 to 18. The tuition is cheap, by US private school standards, just 84 Euro per month. But wow, this would be quite a place to go to school! Here's the view from the rear courtyard.

That view doesn't suck. What else doesn't suck? The library:

And the ballroom:

And the church:

Not sure they used enough gold in there.

So that's Melk Abbey. VERY impressive. We had a great lunch there at a restaurant that the church owns, then moved on to Durnstein. To get there, we followed the Danube downstream a ways. Durnstein is right on the river. It's really a cool little village. It goes back a way, too:

Yeah, that building's been around since 1437. Just a short while. You know, I always heard about how different the European outlook on history and age is from the American, but it never really struck home until on this trip. Throughout, Gertraud, one of the Professors who is a native Austrian, has routinely made statements like "This is a new building, just 150 years old". Her sister, who owns the winery we visited, said that her family hadn't owned the winery very long, just 114 years. The walls of her wine cellar are brand new, just redone 350 years ago! To American ears, all of those are OLD. It's very interesting, the difference in mindset.

Getting back to Durnstein, it's a very cool, quaint town. And there's an old ruined castle in the hills above that we could climb to.

So of course we did. Great view!

After Durnstein, we crossed the Danube to Maurten. The Nicolaihoff Winery is there. Interestingly, it's owned by Gertraud's sister. Or rather, her husband. Their son, Nicholas has taken over the family business though. They started us off correctly, with a very good wine.

After a glass, we got a tour of the premises. Here is where my camera died, so I have just a few pictures.

That last is Gertraud's sister. I didn't get a picture of it, but their press room is awesome. They don't use big modern grape presses like most wineries do; rather, they do it old school. They have a huge beam, the squared-off trunk of a really big tree. It's supported at the center at a pivot. The grapes get put into the press and covered, then the put planks atop the cover to hold it down. Once they're in place, they lower the beam, and the weight of the tree slowly crushes the grapes. The juice escapes through holes in the press, then runs through grooves in the floor to a funnel that leads to the wine cellar and their casks.

Their cellar is very cool also. The entire winery is built over Roman ruins. The cellar itself was actually made by the Romans over 1500 years ago. It's been updated a couple times, the most recent time 350 years ago, as mentioned above. Their casks are cool. They have a lot of them, but four special ones. Those are named, after the family children, and inscribed with their birthdays and a carving the relates to the kid somehow. Apparently the casks were bought on the day of each child's birth. Neat, eh?

Dinner was traditional Austrian, and quite good. They let us try 4 different wines, ranging from their baseline to a Riesling that was aged in the cask for 14 years. That was good! It was pricey, though. Or it would have been, but since it's owned by Gertraud's family, they did the meal at cost and didn't charge for the wine tasting. That explained how the University was ok with class fee funds going to a business owned by a Professor's family: they didn't make any money on it. A good thing they do that, too, because it would have been prohibitively expensive otherwise.

So it was a great day. After we got back to Vienna (just in time to find out that Germany lost the World Cup semifinal....there was wailing and gnashing of teeth around town), we decided to go out for a couple beers to close our last night in Austria. Then I called the Admiral over Skype (we can't seem to get FaceTime to work for us anymore) and called it a night.

Next.....Bratislava and the trip to Prague.

Dinner Out

2010-07-07T05:56:00.000-04:00

Last night was our dinner out in the burbs. We took the metro out a way, then a bus, and got to our destination.

Apparently folks out here make their own wine to sell in the restaurants. This is the garden out back of ours.

The wine leaves something to be desired though. They had both red and white, barely palatable. They long ago decided a cure for that, though: they serve the wine mixed with sparkling water, making a spritzer. The wait staff bring out separate carafes with wine and water, and you mix it yourself. You wouldn't think it, but adding the water improved the wine considerably.

Dinner was good. The only bad part was the entertainment. There was a violinist present, as well as his sidekick on an accordion. That in and of itself wouldn't be so bad, but they sat down right next to out table and played quite loudly. Even that would be tolerable, but the violinist's intonation was a bit off....and they were playing Mozart. Mozart! On an Accordion! Oh, the humanity!!!

Then came the real kicker. One of the ladies in our group wanted me to give them a 2 Euro coin as a tip, so I did. They were VERY pleased. The accordion guy was so happy, he decided to serenade me. Dude practically jumped into my lap! So there I am, getting pushed out of my seat while this guy's playing his accordion literally right in my face. Jessica, the lady who really gave the tip, thought it was hilarious, all the more so because despite my best efforts, they never did get the picture of who the tip was from. Ok, I thought it was funny too. After they left.

We ended up staying until closing. Derek, another of our group, obtained bottle after bottle of wine and ensured that no one's glass emptied. We ended up getting taxis back to the hotel. Suffice it to say that it was a VERY amusing evening. We didn't get in until 2 or so, if that tells you anything.

We're out in the country today. More to follow.

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OPEC Banking

2010-07-06T10:47:00.002-04:00

We got a tour of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) headquarters this morning, and of Raiffeisen International, an Austria-based international bank that focuses mostly on Central and Eastern Europe. Very interesting trip. Here are some shots of OPEC's setup:

They showed us around, then sat us down in their press room for a video and presentation. The video was a typical PR production about OPEC's history. I found it to be a little disingenuous from the start. Apparently, back in 1959, the oil price that the major companies charged fell a couple times. This impacted the amount of taxes they were paying to the rulers of the various countries. In order to stop that, and to line their own pockets, five countries formed OPEC and essentially nationalized the oil production in their lands. Naturally, this had the effect of enriching those rulers immensely. Which was the point, of course. Now, there's nothing wrong with that per say (though I never approve of nationalizing any industry), but the video portrays it as though the companies were screwing the people of these nations, and OPEC saved them. Well....not quite, methinks. The video goes on to describe OPEC's purposes: to look out for the interests of the member nations, to maintain stability in oil markets (read: make prices predictable), and ensure a fair rate of return to those who invest in the industry. All well and good, but they never were able to define what constitutes a "fair" rate, and who decides it. Then the video discusses development programs OPEC funds in developing nations, and how they're pumping $150B a year into them. Outstanding! However, the next factoid seemed odd to me. The video stated that since OPEC nations only have an average per capita income of $5k, they can relate well to the problems of poverty and thus work really hard to solve it. This, of course, begs the question (which Jessica in our group asked, great for her!) of how, exactly, do you make all these hundreds of billions each year...for decades...and your population only makes $5k per year? The answer, of course, is simple. These member nations are all despotic regimes with little to no representative government, almost no private enterprise that amounts to anything, and a small, elite ruling class that uses the oil profits to enrich itself and maintain its power base. The masses? They don't really count, do they?

The presentation after the video was also interesting. The head of their PR department gave us her spiel. A few factoids I didn't know. OPEC was originally based in Geneva, but when Austria brought the UN in, they offered OPEC incentives to move to Vienna also. It accepted, and has been here ever since. There are 147 people employed full time at OPEC, fewer than I would have thought, split between Support functions (IT, PR, HR) and Research (the guys who analyze the market dynamics and try to forecast demand in the future). It appears that OPEC is basically a body to facilitate dialogue between the member nations. It doesn't actually decide anything, it just gathers data, distills it, and gives it to the reps from the member nations, who then decide what to do at their semi-annual meetings. Of course, it's probably a little naive to think that it is totally detached from those nations. It's first purpose is, after all, to look out for those nations' interests. Again, nothing wrong with that, and at least they're upfront about it. To be a member of OPEC, a country has to be a net exporter of oil, have a primarily oil-driven economy, and be willing to go along to get along with the body's decisions. They want unanimity. After all, what good is a cartel if the cartel members don't follow through with its decisions? It makes sense, since OPEC cannot force a member nation to comply, that it would only admit those who will go along.

The conversation turned to peak oil and the environment from there. OPEC's stand on peak oil is hands-off. They're in the oil production business. Worries about preparing for and getting to the post-oil world they leave to their member nations and to other bodies. They claim that, at current production levels, OPEC member states have enough oil to last another 87 years. Great! Until you account for the fact that demand isn't going to remain constant and other non-OPEC reserves will dry up before theirs will (they account for 79% of proven reserves). So there's likely a lot less time than that. Again, a little disingenuous.

Where the real douchebaggery kicked in was in talk of the environment. The PR lady actually said that pollution is caused by developed, industrialized, nations, not by poor and specifically OPEC member nations, so why should they have to pay to help clean it up? That makes about as much sense as Mrs Soprano acting in disbelief and shock when Tony was revealed as a cheater, a liar, and a criminal. Seriously? You don't seriously expect us to believe that act do you? It got worse, though. She went on to bemoan the fact that the west had developed carbon capture and other technologies that make fossil fuel burning cleaner, but OPEC nations can't use them because they're patented, and why don't we just bring the patents over to them? Well I'm sorry, but permission granted to get off your duff and use some of your oil profits wisely. Instead of building another palace for your multitude of princes, how about paying for a patent license and installing the thing, or just hiring the company who owns the patent to install it for you? Why do you think it should just be GIVEN to you?

One more little nugget. Apparently Ecuador found large oil deposits under its rain forest. But out of respect for the bio-diversity of the region, it has opted to not drill it up. Hey, great decision! Unfortunately Ecuador is trying to get the rest of the world to pay it money to not drill. I'm sorry....what???? You've decided that your rain forest is more valuable to you than your oil: a perfectly reasonable, even laudable decision. But where do you get off thinking I should pay you a dime for that???? I would happily pay you for your oil as a good in trade. But I will not pay you for nothing!!!

Frickin Al Gore and his frickin carbon offset shell game nonsense started all this. Douchebag.

Anyway, if you haven't figured it out, I wasn't too impressed with OPEC. Sure they have great facilities and the people seem nice, but the sophistry was a bit too much for me.

The bank was more pleasant and more mundane.

As one would expect, they saw great growth over the last decade and a half, as central and eastern Europe has taken off. Unfortunately, they required some bailout money to get through the financial crisis, but they seem to he recovering well.

Between the hotel and the bank is a cool park.

Pretty nice, eh? We also passed by the mint, which still makes gold coins.

Tonight we're getting dinner out in the suburbs. It'll be interesting to get out of the city center.

More to follow.

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Mozart

2010-07-05T18:50:00.001-04:00

Mozart! Mozart I killed you!

Mediocrities everywhere....I absolve you....I absolve you.

Ok, a free cookie from the Admiral's oven to the first one who identifies the movie quote. I standby for your submissions in the comments.

Yeah, that's the concert hall we went to.

And that's the Mozart orchestra. Pretty cool that they dress up all 18th Century for it, eh?

I'll tell you what, the acoustics in that place were amazing. Gertraud, one of our professors, told us it's considered the best concert hall in the world, acoustically. And it happened by accident; they didn't set out to design it that way. Amazing! It sounded great! I got it on tape, too. I decided to try using Voicememo on my phone to record it, and it worked! Way cool. I just sent the Admiral a clip over email. The rest of you will have to wait.

After the concert, a few of us went to a cafe nearby.

I got some Riesling and an apple strudel with custard. Quite yummy, I must say.

While we were sitting there, I notices a lit-up fountain a couple block away. We decided to go check it out after we finished.

Turns out the fountain was part of the Soviet Soldier memorial. You may recall that it was the Soviet Union that actually pushed the Nazis out of Austria. In 1955, the Soviets consented to withdraw their troops and allow Austria to go its own way, outside of the Warsaw Pact. The conditions of their withdrawal were that Austria remain strictly neutral and that they set up and maintain a monument honoring the Soviet Soldiers that liberated Austria. It upset some Austrians (the Nazis were not without sympathizers there, though most felt gratitude to the Soviets), but they did it. Here it is.

I think it looks a lot like the WWII Memorial in DC, and a little like the American Cemetery in Normandy. I guess it's fitting they should be similar.

I'm going to try FaceTiming the Admiral one last time, then I'm hitting the sack. No wild party night for me tonight.

Until next time!
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UN and Treasure

2010-07-05T11:36:00.000-04:00

I didn't get back to my room until almost 3 this morning. It was a comfortable night, weather-wise....until I got to the hotel. The place was fricking hot! Even opening the window didn't help. I was just finally drifting off to sleep when the Admiral called over FaceTime, at 0400. Nothing against her for it; it was good to have a brief conversation.

Up again at 0800. We were scheduled to leave at 9:15 to go to the local UN offices. We departed late, of course. That's ok though, because our tourguide wasn't ready for us when we got there. So it worked out. The compound is pretty nice:

Our guide was a nice fellow from Congo, who had worked for the UN in Vienna for a couple years. I bet his story is interesting. He showed us around the buildings and explained a lot of the general way things work there. His description of how the real-time translators work in the conference halls was fascinating. I hadn't thought about it before, but those guys and gals have a HARD job! Think about how difficult it would be to pass on verbatim what someone is saying, while their saying it, in your own tongue without screwing it up. Add to that the challenge of on-the-fly translation, and they have to listen, translate, and talk.....all at the same time. Wow.

After that, he showed us some artwork in the building. This sculpture was interesting: it is built of guns and ammo that had been confiscated or turned in to authorities. The artist was trying to show how much more beneficial uses the materials making the weapons could have been put to. I thought it was cool, because among all the revolvers, assault rifles, and machine guns, there was a single flint-lock musket! How nifty.

We received a presentation from a very knowledgable fellow from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Of course, being a nuke, this was right up my alley. :) I hadn't had any dealings with the IAEA before; just heard about them on TV. Having learned more about them today, I have more appreciation for what they do. So, a good trip.

After that, we had a couple hours for lunch. I used an hour and a half of that to snooze, then grabbed a bratwurst from a stand in the street.

This afternoon, we went by the lipazonner (I'm sure I mis-spelled that) stallions' stables. The horses left town yesterday, but we saw a little video of their act, then it was on to the Imperial church (one of them). A nice little chapel:

Next stop, the Imperial Treasury, within the palace complex.

Lots of valuable stuff in there. Duh! Among the most valuable thing in there is this, the largest emerald in the world

Apparently, another king once offered 4 TONS of gold for this little gem, but the Habsburgs told him to pack sand. So that gives you an idea of what it's worth.

These two things the Habsburgs were forbidden to ever sell:

The first is a bowl carved from a single piece of agate something like 1500 years ago in Constatinople. Apparently, looking at it in a certain light, at a certain angle, you can see Christ's name inspired on it. The story goes that only a "chosen" person could see it, so naturally the Emperor had to have it. They claimed it was the Holy Grail, too, apparently. But we all known that is buried under the pyramid in the Louvre, so I don't know what they're trying to pull here. ;)

The second thing is actually the horn from a Narwhale, but the Habsburgs believed it to be a Unicorn horn. Since, by their beliefs, only the Virgin Mary could capture a Unicorn, that made this horn quite special, as you can imagine. Ah those silly Habsburgs.....

That's it for today so far. We broke for a couple hours for dinner or whatever. I stopped by this fruit stand.

They had some yummy nectarines and bananas, but even better, they had a juicer, and they squeezed out fresh orange juice on demand. Wow, that was great stuff!

It's 1830 now. At 1930, we're off to a Mozart concert. I'm thinking of trying to record part of it with the iphone's voice memo feature. We'll see how that works.

Later!

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Walking Tour

2010-07-04T15:05:00.001-04:00

I didn't go wandering this morning. Instead, I crashed. I thought I was good to go, but at the end of breakfast I started yawning up a storm. So at about 9:30 I hit the rack. I woke up briefly just before noon, but didn't really get up until right before 1400. My designated roommate for the week knocked on the door then. He had just arrived. Good timing: I may have missed our kick-off meeting if he hadn't shown up when he did. Too bad for him though: his luggage was lost on his flight.

That sucks of course.

Regardless, we got rolling on our foot tour of Vienna. Long story short, this is an awesome city. Photos follow:

Right now we're drinking with a couple Aussies at an Aussie bar right in the center of Vienna, so I'm not in much condition to comment more. I'll post more tomorrow.

Oy.

:)

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Vienna Arrival

2010-07-04T03:24:00.002-04:00

Having successfully bamboozled a spot on the Amicus, I settled in for a (somewhat) restful night. The train actually left at about 2330 and arrived in Vienna a bit after 0600. On the way, we passed a wind farm.

Now, I've been a lot of places and seen a number of these, and this was the first one that I've ever seen that didn't have 80% of the windmills at a standstill. All of them were moving on this one. Wow, could this wind farm be the one that actually is economically feasible?? Nah. I doubt it. I AM an engineer, after all, and I understand the severe limitations of this sort of power generation.

Anyway, the train got to Vienna on time. Success! Time to get to the hotel.

Before I departed on this trip, I printed out directions to the hotel (Hotel Pension Suzanne) from Meidling Station on Google Maps. But when I got out of the station, the streets it said to take weren't there. Ermm....now what?

Well I knew I needed to head northeast. So I turned into the rising sun and headed down the road. One thing that threw me off was the map I printed showed a river next to the road, but as far as I could tell there isn't one. Oh well, I'll just keep going. There were a number of nice parks and tree-lined streets, but still no street name that matched my map. Eventually I saw a sign that said "Zentrum". Reasoning that it was pointing toward the city center, where the opera house...and the hotel...are, I followed it.

Before long, I found myself next to a closed Cafe that advertised Internet in it's window. Whipping out the iPhone, I quickly found a free Wifi signal and climbed on. With wifi inboard, the maps app in the phone was able to update, and In no time it had my gps position plotted. Entering in the address for the hotel and....voilà! It was literally straight up the street in the direction I was walking, about 2 km away. Damn I'm good!

A short walk later, Past some neat architecture, I arrived.

There's the opera house (I think). And here's my hotel:

Though I didn't expect to be able to check in until noon or later, they were all ready for me, and in a few minutes I was unpacking in the room. Nice!

We don't start our festivities until 1400, so I got some breakfast. A classmate was also eating, and we chatted for a bit. He left to take care of some business, so now I'm writing this. :). It's now just before 0900. I think I'll wander a bit. Or maybe take a nap. Haven't decided.

Should be a fun day!

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Bad Gouge

2010-07-04T02:06:00.002-04:00

As I write this, I'm sitting in the last sleeping car in the R471 Amicus train from Prague to Vienna's Meidling Station. I'm waiting to see if the conductor will let me take the train or not. But, but, but.....you have a ticket, right? I can hear the chorus of confusion now, and it's echoing in my head.

You see, when I planned this trip, I received assurances online and from the Professor that I just had to go to the ticket booth at the station and I could get a ticket. Nice and easy, and less than $100. So I did just that. When the plane landed in Prague I got my bag and hopped on the Airport Express bus to Hlavni Nadrazi, the main train station in Praha (Prague). I found the ticket booth, told the lady I needed a ticket to Vienna tonight, gave her just over 1000 Czech Korunas (about 39 Euros or about $50). In return, she gave me a ticket. I then out my bags into a storage locker and started roaming, since it was about 1930 and the train didn't leave until 2311.

In my roaming, I quickly found an Internet cafe, uploaded my blog post from Frankfurt and made a FaceTime call to the Admiral. Or tried to, anyway, but it said she wasn't available. Guess she wasn't in Wifi range. She called me back a few minutes later, having seen my update on Facebook. The great thing about FaceTime on the iPhone 4 is it goes through Wifi, not through cell towers. So we're able to talk without using international roaming....but only if we both have a wifi connection.

Anyway, after that I found a couple pubs and had some good Czech beer. Took a couple pictures too.

The lady at the ticket booth couldn't tell me which track the train would take; she said it would be posted 20 minutes prior to departure. So, I came back at 2240 and retrieved my bags from the locker. Sure enough, it was posted: track 4. I went to the stern-most car on the train, as directed, handed the conductor my ticket, and was told it wasn't good enough.

Apparently, the ticket the lady sold me was a generic ticket to Vienna, but to be on the Amicus, with the sleeping cars, you also need a car reservation, which costs another 38 Euro. Nobody told me this so I was left standing on the train wondering if I was going to have to get a room at a hostel for the night, take the first train in the morning, and be late in meeting my class. Eventually, he put me in the last cabin and told me to wait there. Apparently the pair who reserved it hadn't shown up yet. He said if the train left before they got there, I could have the cabin. Of course, I'd have to pay another 1000 Koruna.

Well, the train just pulled away from the station, so I guess I'm golden. Good thing I exchanged $200 into Korunas: $200 got me a but more than 3700 Korunas, so I had enough to pay the man. Would have really sucked otherwise.

The great thing is the car has a shower. Boy, do I need one after the last day and a half of traveling. Ok, time to hit the sack.

Next stop: Vienna!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Frankfurt

2010-07-03T14:13:00.001-04:00

I landed in Frankfurt an hour and a half ago (it's 1530 local on 3 July now, though it may be a while before I find a wifi hotspot to upload this).

It was a quick flight from Albany to Chicago, then I had a 3 1/2 hr layover. Fortunately, there was a pretty good Italian restaurant right next to my departure gate, so I was happy to have some time to kill.

Mmmmmmmmmmm....yummy!

I had a voicemail waiting for me as I got off the plane. Seems this guy Tony in Charleston saw my add to sell Icefire a few months ago and saved it. He went on to get a different, bigger boat (a Tartan 34....nice) but he wanted to know if he could rent my mooring, assuming I'd been successful in selling Icefire. I was a bit amused, considering the fate of that mooring (look back at my March entries if you missed THAT tale). Nonetheless, I returned his call and we talked for a while. He wants to go by my boat at High and Dry Boatworks and check out the mooring hardware, which is lying on Icefire's deck. I convinced him to give her a once-over and apprise me of her status, and in particular the condition of her bottom. If the mooring is sound, he may be interested in buying it to re-install himself. That could be cool. :). I sent Kurt, the boatyard owner, a heads-up email that Tony's stopping by. Guess we'll see what comes of that.

Back to the topic at hand, the flight into Frankfurt was good. We left at 2220, well after sunset, but I got a pic of it.

I had the aisle seat (though I wasn't supposed to....the lady next to me was supposed to be in 24G and I in 24F, but when I arrived she was happily sitting in F, so who was I to kick her out?). She was a friendly lady, and we spoke for most of the portion of the flight we were awake for. Turns out she's from Frankfurt, but lives in Kansas because she married a US Army guy. He's deployed and she's flying home for her brother's wedding. She works as a preschool teacher Pretty cool. Behind us was a fellow American and one of his daughters (he has twins, about a year old....number two was over in the window seat with Mommy). She was a cute little girl, and once she stopped crying she spent a lot of time poking me between the seats. Fun. :). I showed both of my two new disposable friends (to take a line from Fight Club.....or was it part-time friend...temporary friend? I guess I need to watch it again) a pic of Vasili and Sibylla.

The guy with twins seemed to appreciate that another person on the plane could relate to crying kids and didn't mind hearing his girl wail. So that's good. Turns out they served both dinner and breakfast on the flight, so I felt a little silly about eating at the terminal, but THAT meal was much better than the airline food. The free scotch was a good thing though. ;). I even managed to get 4 hrs or so of (uncomfortable) sleep.

My seatmate informed me that, while not the biggest airport in Europe, Frankfurt is the busiest. I can believe it. There are LOTS of people traipsing through here. And it's a frisking maze. I'm not sure who designed this place, but it's not the easiest to navigate. It does have a cool train to get you from terminal to terminal though.

First order of business was to get some Euro. The dollar seems to have weakened since I checked a few days ago. Here in the terminal, the exchange rate is 1.34 $/Euro. $105 netted me 74 Euro. Oh well. Could be much worse: it could still be the exchange rate from a year or two ago.

It took a while to find my next gate, but I managed. I've got another hour to kill before boarding (it's 1603 now) but I found a little shop that sells beer. So I settled in with a good Germany brew and decided to type this.

So that's the trip so far. Nothing to complain about, and plenty of fun.

- Posted in Prague